“Cuerpo presente” is an exhibition that gathers five artists—Adal [Maldonado], Norah Hernández, Elsa María Meléndez, and the twin artists Jaime and Javier Suárez—at the Ponce Art Museum. The exhibition, which opened on October 22, 2011, will be on view until March 5, 2012. The museum is located at 2325 Las Américas Avenue in Ponce, Puerto Rico.

Description: “Cuerpo presente” brings together five artists from different disciplines that focus on the body as inspiration, subject and symbol. Adál gives us a photographic sequence, “Párpados cayendo” [Eyelids Falling] a surreal story in fotonovela format. The shield-dresses of the installation “Cuerpos de luz” [Bodies of Light] of Norah Hernández are, metaphorically, repositories of the soul. The installation based on textiles, “La maldición de la cotorra: los perros mágicos” [The Curse of the Parrot: Magical Dogs] by Elsa María Meléndez deploys highly personal and social narratives. In the Puerto Rico Garden, visitors will find the installation “Archipelago,” by Jaime and Javier Suárez: pieces of recycled asphalt forming a human body and an island territory at the same time. This body encourages reflection on the representation of the physical body, not just as a live system, but also as a symbol of the human condition.

Curator of “Cuerpo presente” Arlette la Serna explains that “the exhibition presents the dynamic relationship between the human body and art, always evolving. It gives us the results of the reading that artists are doing of the body in contemporary culture.”

[Image above: A scene from Adal’s “Párpados cayendo”]

For more information, see http://www.museoarteponce.org/exhibicion/Cuerpo-Presente/3/41/35/ and http://www.magacin.com/2011/11/01/cuerpo-presente/

For Adál’s page, see http://www.adalmindfictions.com/

For Norah Hernández’s page, see http://www.norahhernandez.com/

For Elsa María Meléndez’s page, see http://elsa-melendez.msa-x.org/

For Jaime and Javier Suárez’s page, see http://vientrecompartido.blogspot.com/